月別: 1月 2016

Lesson One:
What did you do in the last week?
Genetic research and the effect on society.

Lesson Two:
Differences types of work contracts.
Resignation Vs Redundancy
Current economics of the world and the differences in salary rates and cost of living.
We didn’t get a chance to do more work on Improving Oral Communication so we will continue it next time. I will not be in next Sunday so I will see you all the following week.

31st January 2016Free Talk3-4pm: 6 students4-5pm: 4 students

Lesson One:
Today was a medical English lesson. Started the lesson speaking about health care and ambulance cover. One of the students spoke about mental institutions and as I have a background in Psychology we spoke about mental Illness and how it is diagnosed.
Difference between someone who is depressed and someone who is diagnosed with Depression.

Lesson Two:
We played a game on the whiteboard which required students to swap items on their list with items on another students list. The aim was to make the most money.

Thank you everyone for attending today! I will not be in next week as I am going to the snow festival in Hokkaido~ Sorry for any inconvenience and I will see you the following week!

[Lesson]
・疑問詞”How long does it take…”を使った質問練習
「日本からハワイへはどれくらいの時間がかかるの？」
-> How long does it take from Japan to Hawaii?
「日本で大学を卒業するにはどれぐらいの時間がかかるの？」
-> How long does it take to graduate from university in Japan?
・Guess (推測する) + 疑問詞 S+Vの練習 (間接疑問文)
「昨日なに買ったと思う？」
-> Guess what I bought yesterday?
・時差の聞き方
-> What’s the time difference between Japan and Sydney?

いいね:

In the first class I met Ms. N. for the first time, so we spent some time in introductions. She told me about her job, as a mid-wife nurse. We talked about a training seminar she had recently attended in Tokyo, connected to her job. This seminar was about the problem of ‘breast-feeding’ vs. baby’s milk formulas. Recently, it seems that many new mothers, are unwilling to wait 2 ~ 3 days, for their own bodies to start producing the milk, needed to feed their babies naturally, and many of them have been convinced by advertising, that artificial mild formulas, are healthier, and more convenient, than breast-feeding. We talked about cow’s milk, and the methods used in the dairy industry, in order for the cows to continuously produce milk, that is actually meant for baby cows, and not humans. We talked about the Fukushima earthquake, and resulting nuclear melt-down disaster. Ms. N. had to go to Fukushima as part of her job, to give medical support to the army, who were dealing with the ‘disaster relief’ efforts at that time. We talked about Prime Minister Abe’s desire to change the Japanese constitution, concerning the self-defence army. We talked about the current ‘presidential race’ taking place in the USA. at the moment, and about some of the candidates.

In the second class Ms. Y. told me about a seminar she attended last week, relating to the stock market, and what she heard there, about the stock market ‘trends’ for the near future. Here are some of the words we looked at today…

Artificial (adjective) = Made by people and used instead of something natural.eg. Professional tomato growers use both natural and artificial light, while growing their tomatoes.

Chai (noun) = A type of Indian milky, sweet, flavoured tea, usually served in Indian restaurants, and often sold in cafés.

Racist (noun) = Someone who does not like, or respect people, who belong to races, that are different from their own, and who believes that their own race, is better than others. eg. It is well known, that Donald Trump (one of the American presidential candidates), is a very strong racist!

Recommend (verb) = To advise someone, that they should do something. eg.I recommended the student, to use the Macmillan online Dictionary.

Weird (adjective) = Strange and unusual, sometimes in a way that upsets you, or makes you feel uncomfortable. eg. In the middle of the night, I woke-up from a very weird dream, and couldn’t go back to sleep for a while.

So, enough for today! Thank you for coming to my classes today. Have a great weekend. See you next time! Rita.

She canceled her trip at the last minute, so she did not get a refund.

ぎりぎりでキャンセルしたので返金してもらえなかった。

I have a non-refundable airplane ticket. 返金不能なチケット

walk-in customers 飛び込み客

Walk-in customers are always welcomed!! 飛び込み客はいつでも大歓迎！

We talked about English cafes! She told us that Kinki University’s English village called e-cube is going to open to the public from February until the end of March! She highly recommended the English village since she had an enjoybale time there. She felt happy to see people enjoying the time there. 近畿大学の英語村 e-cube が来月一般向けに期間限定でオープンするそうです！ いらした事のある生徒さんがとても楽しかった！参加している人々が楽しそうに過ごしていたのが印象的だったそうです！一度行ってみたい！Check it out!

How was your trip to Guam? I hope you enjoyed sightseeing and walking along the beach with your co-wokers. There were Japanese speaking staff wherever she visited. WOW!! グアム旅行はいかがでしたか The skewers she tried must have been delicious! skewers 串もの

屋台で召し上がった串もの 美味しかったでしょうね！楽しいお話有難うございました！

chicken skewers octopus skewers I saw people enjoying eating octopus skewers in NIshiki Market. 錦市場でたこ串を楽しそうに食べる人々を見た。 A few seconds later I bought one. ２，３秒後には買っていた。

bland food 味気ない食べ物

The pasta I ate yesterday was very bland. You need to season with salt and pepper.

season with salt and pepper 塩と胡椒で味付けする

force 人 to 無理やりさせる

My friend forced me to try bungy jumping. 友が無理やり私にバンジーさせた

Thank you for coming again! I enjoyed talking with you!

お助け隊 ご報告！

Great job!! Thank you so much for joining Otasuketai in the COLD! Velco students were very enthusiastic about talking with travelers! I was very happy about their attitude! 寒い中お助け隊へのご参加大変有難うございました。生徒さん達が意気込んでおられるのが嬉しかったです！

We met four boys from Australia! They reminded us of One Direction! They were students from Brisben and they mainly enjoyed snowboarding in Hakuba. They said the snow in Hakuba was much better than the one of Australia.

We also met a traveler from Finland! He has been travelling different countries for 6 months! We talked about Japanese comedians and he showed us a movie of Egg Man who is one of the most popular comedians in Finland.その後一人で旅行されていたフィンランド人男性に出会い会社経営などの仕事を離れた後6か月間世界旅行されているとの事でした。日本のコメディアンの話をするとフィンランドではＥＧＧ ＭＡＮというコメディアンが人気、動画も見せて下さいました！(^_^)

Although this class was mainly conducted in a pair-work based style, it was nice talking about number of topics with you. Let me share some of the findings that I have got.

What do you define yourself with one 漢字?

Here are some of them students actually thought up.

■「変」… represents her determination of 2016

■「動」… represents his personality, keeping himself “active”

■「尼」… represents her identity that she is from 尼崎

■「勝」… represents her identity (*the 漢字 is used in her last name) and determination(=victory)

No “GUM” in Singapore

According to a student, the government in Singapore legally bans its citizens and visitors from eating gum for environmental protection.

“Indonesian”; Your second foreign language!?

According to a student, Indonesian is a relatively easy language to pick up for Japanese. (*needless to say, there is no such thing as “easy” when doing language) Indonesia is economically becoming stronger and is a center of ASEAN, so it is expected that there will be high demand for Japanese to speak Indonesian in the future.